The very next day

Rachael woke up feeling better than most days, which was odd considering how early she had to wake up for Wednesday classes. Thinking about it, she hadn't even been woken up by the alarm on her phone either. In a fit of panic she rolled over an frantically searched for her phone on her nightstand, a difficult task without her glasses. Sure enough, the charging cable hadn't been fully connected. Apparently the phone had died at some point during the night due to the increased battery usage thanks to the constant playing of the audio file. Rachael tried squinting her eyes to see the time on the wall-mounted clock over her desk but conceded her attempts, realizing that the distance was too great for her nearsightedness. Once she finally located her glasses and put them on her cute button nose she could tell the time clearly. Eight thirty.

"I'M SUPER LATE!"

Ignoring the fact that her lecture had started fifteen minutes ago, Rachael's morning routine alone usually took between thirty to forty five minutes. Begrudgingly, the poor girl put on the same pair of sweats and t-shirt she'd worn before bed and scurried for the things she needed for school. Not five minutes later she'd already left the front door and began running towards campus. It wasn't a long run, but her lack of exercise made it feel like a marathon. She arrived drenched in sweat, her hair a mess.

Standing outside the entrance to the lecture hall for just a brief moment, Rachel tried to collect herself a bit, ease her breathing, and tidy her hair before entering. What she'd not realized was that the time was eight fifty, meaning the lecture was on break. Unfortunately for her, professor Christiansen came returning from his quest to fetch the water bottle he always carried. He never went to lecture without it, and on the odd occasion that he did, he constantly complained about how dry his mouth and throat got.

"Alas, the great Miss Simmons show her true colors.. You might have the other lecturers under your thumb, but I see you for what you really are. You'll never amount to anything if you can't even get to class on time..."

The sarcasm in his voice as he said the great would make even Dr. House blush. Christiansen was among the few professors on campus that didn't acknowledge Rachael just on the basis that she was a woman. Every little wrongdoing of hers was put under a microscope, while her efforts got trifled.

Rachael was about to talk back and put her lecturer in his place, taking no disrespect from anyone. But the words died in her throat as the meaning of what he'd just said hit her. Perhaps he was right? Maybe she did have a habit of coming late? Instead of telling Christiansen exactly what she thought, she simply nodded her head and walked into the auditorium, her head held slightly lower than usual.

Scanning the room for a place to sit, Rachael was pleased to find that her best friend, Rebecca, had kept an open seat for her. Putting down her backpack by the seat, she struggled to keep her breathing under control. The run had taken it's toll, made all the more evident by the drops of sweat on her forehead.

"Wow. You look like a mess" Sarah said teasingly.

"Tell me about it, my phone died because I didn't properly plug the damn charger, and I overslept."

Sarah knew the feeling all too well, in contrast the Rachael, she'd never been known for her diligence. Being the more laid back of the two, she often came to class a few minutes too late. "Fashionably late" she called it, whatever that meant.

"Here"

The friend had her hand stretched out with a hairbrush she'd retrieved from her own bag. Rachael returned the favor with a friendly smile and gratefully accepted the brush. She might be wearing some less than flattering clothes with unbrushed teeth and sweat all over, but at least her hair could be presentable.

Lost in her thoughts of self pity, Rachael failed to notice the resumption of the lecture. Always being under his watchful eye, Professor Christiansen was quick to pick up on his student's absentmindedness.

"Care to explain to us what were seeing here, Miss Simmons?"

Usually she'd be able to answer without problem, but the much needed context to the otherwise barren graph had been given during the part of the lecture she'd missed.

"I.. Uhm".

Christiansen wore on of his world famous shit-eating grins. The type of "gotcha" face he almost never got to wear when questioning his most dedicated student.

"I guess those glasses are only there for show, huh? If they can't even help you see that this is depicting the Dunning-Kruger effect then you might as well not wear them at all."

How could she not have noticed? The graph, though slightly different from the standard example used in textbooks and articles, still had all the tell-tale signs of being a depiction of the Dunning-Kruger effect. It had "Mount stupid", followed by the "Valley of Despair". Then finished off with the incline, also known as the "Slope of enlightenment" before leveling out on the "Plateau of Sustainability".
Maybe he was right, if the glasses couldn't help her see, they failed to fulfil their purpose. In which case the logical thing would be to not wear them. Because who in their right mind would wear glasses that didn't aid their vision? Apart from posers who wore glasses "for fashion". That wasn't Rachel though, to her it was the equivalent of someone with perfectly healthy legs using crutches for fun.
As one would expect, the absence of her ocular crutches, Racahael had a hard time keeping up with the lecture. The fact that her Professor had failed to upload the Powerpoint before the lecture didn't help, usually it'd be possible for the students in the back to follow along with their own computers.
The next forty minutes went by at a snails pace. For the first time in her student life, all Rachael wanted was for the day to end.